A bumper crop, and a farmer who will not sell

A certain farmer on the outskirts of the city had, one season, grown a truly exceptional crop of cucumbers, and rather than sell them at the going rate like any sensible man with a perishable harvest, he decided that such fine vegetables deserved a fine price, and turned away buyer after buyer who offered him only the ordinary market rate, certain that someone, eventually, would pay whatever he chose to ask.

A generous offer, gladly accepted

Word of this stubborn, ambitious farmer reached Tenali Rama, who went to see him in person, examined the cucumbers with every appearance of genuine admiration, and offered to buy the man's entire remaining stock at a price so far above market value, paid out in gold coin without so much as a request for change, that the farmer could scarcely believe his greed had finally, spectacularly paid off.

A promise to return, and a door closed to everyone else

Tenali, having paid so handsomely for so small a quantity, remarked as he left that he would be back the very next day for a much larger purchase at exactly the same generous rate, and the farmer, dazzled by gold and already spending it in his imagination, spent the rest of that day and all of the next turning away every other customer who came to his gate, unwilling to sell so much as a single cucumber at ordinary prices when a buyer willing to pay a fortune was expected at any moment.

A day of waiting, and no one else allowed in

He waited through the morning, and then through the afternoon, refusing offer after offer from ordinary buyers who had always been happy enough with his cucumbers at a fair price, certain each time that the delay was merely a sign his generous patron was about to arrive with an even larger purse.

The buyer who never returns

Tenali, of course, had no intention of returning at all, having gotten precisely what he wanted from the transaction on the first visit — not the cucumbers, which he had little real use for, but the lesson, delivered at the cost of one inflated purchase, that a man who lets greed dictate his choices will happily turn away a dozen honest customers while he waits for one dishonestly generous one who was never coming back.

A field of cucumbers, and a moral no one had to explain

By the time the farmer finally understood that no second visit was forthcoming, his cucumbers had begun to wilt in their baskets, his ordinary customers had long since taken their business elsewhere, and the whole affair had become, around the city, a byword for the particular foolishness of a man so busy chasing one extraordinary profit that he forgets to accept the ordinary ones standing right in front of him.